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There are too many outdated torrents and information, and the CHDs torrent generated by archive.org has garbage padding files and only has files up to 0-9A-C.

I am tired of it and I know you are too, so here are the latest.

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LATEST FULL TORRENTS AS OF 2022-MAY (MAME 0.243):

Magnet links:
0.243 CHDs (Full 585.25GB torrent, 100+ seeds):
magnet:?xt=urn:btih:e5aee5d6a78637d2f2bcb1349f876778520943cb&dn=MAME%200.243%20CHDs%20(merged)&tr=http://tracker.opentrackr.org:1337/announce

0.243 ROMs (Merged, 70.21GB torrent, 100+ seeds):
magnet:?xt=urn:btih:4daf78d230c4745d836d79c2e7216a2930d5fb15&dn=MAME%200.243%20ROMs%20(merged)&tr=http://tracker.opentrackr.org:1337/announce

0.242 EXTRAs (artwork/cheats/snap/titles/manuals/etc, 64.31GB torrent, 100+ seeds):
magnet:?xt=urn:btih:67189b08addd7dd1675141f8060650de668e24f8&tr=http://tracker.opentrackr.org:1337/announce

.torrents files:
0.243 CHDs (Full 585.25GB torrent, 100+ seeds):
https://archive.org/download/mame-chds-roms-extras-complete/MAME%200.243%20CHDs%20%28merged%29%20Full%20585.25GB.torrent

0.243 ROMs (Merged, 70.21GB torrent, 100+ seeds):
https://archive.org/download/mame-chds-roms-extras-complete/MAME%200.243%20ROMs%20%28merged%29%20Full%2070.21GB.torrent

0.242 EXTRAs (artwork/cheats/snap/titles/manuals/etc, 64.31GB torrent, 100+ seeds):
https://archive.org/download/mame-chds-roms-extras-complete/MAME%200.242%20EXTRAs%20%28artwork%2Ccheats%2Csnap%2Ctitles%2Cmanuals%2Cetc%29%20Full%2064.31GB.torrent

File list:
https://archive.org/download/mame-chds-roms-extras-complete

Tracker with the most seeds (100+):
http://tracker.opentrackr.org:1337/announce

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QUICK HOW TO GUIDE AS OF 2022-MAY (MAME 0.243):

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STEP 1 - Basics
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Know that:
a) MAME considers CHD files as ROM files, CHDs are just bigger ROMs
b) MAME doesn't care where you put the CHDs or ROMs as long as all ROMs/CHDs directories are added to the rom path configuration.
c) That means you can add the torrent directories to MAME, and update MAME's database while ROMs/CHDs are being downloaded one by one, you can also pick which ROMs to download first, read how to do this below.

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STEP 2 - Download the ROMs and CHDs
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a) Install and run qBittorrent ( https://www.qbittorrent.org/ )
b) In qBittorrent, click [open url] or [add magnet link], a box will pop up.
c) Paste into the box the two magnet links from above, one line per link ( magnet:?xt=urn:btih:xxxxxxxxxxxxx... )
d) Click [Download] or [OK] to close the box.
e) You should now see in the qBittorent [Transfers] tab there are two torrents being added, [MAME 0.2xx ROMs (merged)] and [MAME 0.2xx CHDs (merged)].
f) If you have waited for a minute and the torrents are not downloading, manually add a torrent tracker to each torrent, so that qBittorrent knows what peers/seeds to download from, do this by:
i) From qBittorrent [Transfers] tab, select one of the torent ([MAME 0.2xx ROMs (merged)] or [MAME 0.2xx CHDs (merged)])
ii) Click the [Trackers] tab (between [General] and [Peers])
iii) Right click anywhere in the tracker list for a pop-up menu
iv) Click [Add a new tracker...], a box [List of trackers to add] will pop up.
v) Paste the following tracker URL into the box and press [OK]:
http://tracker.opentrackr.org:1337/announce
vi) You should now see [http://tracker.opentrackr.org:1337/announce] in the tracker list, watch the [Peers] and [Seeds] column, there should be more than 100.
vii) Do this once for the ROMs torrent and once for the CHDs torrent.
g) Continue to the next step while the torrents are downloading.

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STEP 3 - Find out where the ROMs/CHDs .zip files are downloaded to
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There are 2 paths: The ROMs (70+GB) and The CHDs (500+GB). Do these steps to find both:
a) In qBittorrent: In the [Transfers] tab, right click the torrent name [MAME 0.2xx ROMs (merged)] or [MAME 0.2xx CHDs (merged)], you should see a small pop-up menu.
b) Left click [Open destination folder], a file manager should pop up.
c) In the file manager, look at the directory location ('directory' is also called 'folder' in windows).
d) Do it once for the ROMs and once for the CHDs, remember these 2 directories for the next step.

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STEP 4 - Add BOTH ROMs and CHDs directories to MAME
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Set MAME's ROMs directory to the two directories qBittorrent is downloading to:
a) Go to MAME's main screen (restart MAME if not sure)
b) Click [Configure Options]
c) Click [Configure Directories]
d) Click [ROMs]
e) Click [Add Folder]
f) Browse the directory tree using the [UP/DOWN/ENTER] key to select the correct directory from [Step 3] above.
e) Once you find the final correct directory, just highlighting it is not enough, you must press [Enter] to enter it first, otherwise you'll just set the parent directory instead.
f) Once INSIDE the correct directory, press the [TAB] key on your keyboard to set the directory in MAME.
g) Click [Return to Previous Menu]
h) Click [Save Configuration]
i) Do this once for the ROMs directory and once for the CHDs directory. You need to add both directories (from STEP 3) for all ROMs to work.

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STEP 5 - Decide on what ROMs to download and how often do you run audits in MAME
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Now that the ROMs/CHDs are downloading and the correct MAME directories are configured, you want to audit the download directories in MAME so that it will find all the newly downlodaded ROMs/CHDs .zip files.

During the audit, MAME will find the newly downloaded ROMs/CHDs .zip files and update MAME's internal database, newly downloaded ROMs/CHDs will show up in the [Available] section in MAME.

Depending on your goal and available time/bandwidth, you have 3 options:
a) Slow + Complete:
Wait for all ROMs/CHDs to be downloaded and update MAME database once (this takes much longer to see the ROMs from MAME because the file pieces are downloaded randomly across all files); or

b) Quick:
You only select a few favorite ROMs/CHDs to be downloaded, then update MAME database. You do this by going to qBittorrent, in 'Transfers' tab left click a torrent (ROMs or CHDs), click the 'Content' Tab, Tick/Untick ROMs/CHDs to download/not download (e.g. only tick 1941.zip, everything else unticked); or

c) Quick + Complete (Recommended):
You select all ROMs/CHDs to be downloaded, but you also enable 'Download in sequential order', so that all ROMs/CHDs will be downloaded one by one. Set your favorite ROMs/CHDs .zip to 'Maximum' priority so your favorite ROMs/CHDs will be downloaded first. Update MAME database once in a while after a new bunch of ROMs/CHDs are downloaded. You get the best of both worlds. Do this by:

i) Configure qBittorrent to download .zip files one by one:
In qBittorrent 'Transfers' tab, right click a torrent, then select [torrent options...], then tick [Download in sequential order]. Do this once for the ROMs torrent and once for the CHDs torrent.

ii) Configure qBittorrent to download your favorite ROMs first:
In qBittorrent 'Transfers' tab, left click a torrent (ROMs or CHDs), click the 'Content' tab, find your favorite ROM/CHD file (e.g. 1941.zip) and click on 'Normal' in the Download Priority column, it'll pop up a selection of [Do not download/Normal/High/Maximum], select [Maximum]. Do this to EACH ROM/CHD .zip file you want to complete download first. (e.g. 1941.zip is on 'Maximum' priority while everything else is on 'Normal' priority)

This combination allows you to download ALL ROMs/CHDs sequentially one by one, and allow you to play your favorite ROMs first.

Each time one or a bunch of the ROM/CHD .zip reaches 100% download, you can audit the download directories for MAME to add the new ROMs to the [Availabe] section, which brings us to the next step.

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STEP 6 - Audit the ROMs/CHDs and update the MAME database
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a) (In MAME window) Click the magnifying glass and select [Audit media for all 38967 machines]
b) Wait for MAME to audit both ROMs and CHDs directories
c) The newly downloaded ROMs/CHDs will now show up in the [Available] section.
d) For subsequent audits, select [Audit media for X machines marked unavailable] instead to skip the known completed ROMs to reduce audit time.

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STEP 7 (optional) - Install MAME Extras
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You can add extras such as in-game/title screenshots (snap/titles), cheats, etc to your MAME installation, you have two options:

a) The hard way:
Download and install each extras component manually and set up your own perfect MAME, e.g., goto https://www.progettosnaps.net/snapshots/ and download [Snap > Full-Set 0.240 (pS_snap_full_240.zip)] and [Titles > Full-Set 0.240 (pS_titles_full_240.zip)] and the smaller 0.24x update packages. Decompress the snap zip, find the directory with 40000 .png files, move all the .png to MAME's [snap] directory. Decompress the titles zip, find the directory with 40000 .png files, move all the .png to MAME's [titles] directory. snap and title .png files have the exact same filename, don't mix them up. Get the cheat.zip from ( http://cheat.retrogames.com/mame_downloads.htm ), decompress it to MAME's cheat directory. You can also manually download and install the latest cabinet/flyers/manuals/etc. This method is too complex and time consuming for the average MAME user, and is only recommdned for experts chasing after the absolute latest. For everyone else, wait a while for the new version of EXTRAs torrent to be released (see 'The easy way' below).

b) The easy way (Recommended):
Get all the cabinet/cheats/manuals/snap/titles etc from a single [MAME Extras] torrent, it is not updated as regularly as MAME binary/ROMs/CHDs, but this way will save you a lot of work.

Currently the MAME Extras torrent is at 0.242, while MAME is 0.243, so it is not that far behind. It'll still work, you just see blank title/snap images on the newest ROMs. To do this:

a) Goto https://pleasuredome.github.io/pleasuredome/mame/
Scroll to [MAME EXTRAs full sets:] > [MAME EXTRAs/Set:].
Click on [MAME 0.242 EXTRAs], it'll jump to a page with a magnet link. Currently it contains the magnet link:
magnet:?xt=urn:btih:67189b08addd7dd1675141f8060650de668e24f8

b) Copy this link, goto qBittorrent, click [Open URL] and paste the link, click [OK], wait for the files to complete download

c) Set cheat.zip, snap.zip and titles.zip to [Maximum] priority if you want them to complete first.

d) Decompress the cheat.zip/titles.zip/snap.zip etc to MAME's root directory, it'll create the correct sub directories.

e) Restart MAME and check the result. If you don't see the cheat/title/snaps, double check that the decompressed directories and MAME directories configuration are the same, often the extra sub directories from the .zip aren't needed, so you move the files one parent directory above (\snap\snap to just \snap, \cheat\cheatxxxx to just \cheat).

f) To enable cheats:
i) (In MAME's main window) Click [Configure Options]
ii) Click [Miscellaneous Options]
iii) Set [Cheats] to [On]
iv) Click [Return to Previous Menu]
v) Click [Save Configuration]
vi) From now on when you are playing a ROM, press the [TAB] key and you should see [Cheat] in the menu.

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STEP 8 - Play and enjoy
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That's it, play your favorite ROMs and enjoy.

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Credits to pleasuredome for the magnet links, it also has a lot of other MAME data sets:
https://pleasuredome.github.io/pleasuredome/mame/
Guide by Rompacker:
https://archive.org/details/@rompacker
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EDIT: When I put in the romset it started up a random game automatically and no way to exit it. I am back to 2.09 which actually works. It's the last stable version for arcade roms. I'm sure the later versions are great for the bizarre consoles and people who do it thru Retroarch which seems to be the direction the devs have gone so due to that I'll stick to 2.09.

EDIT2: Still the same issue. The romset provided I think is the problem not the actual emulator. It causes the emulator to automatically start a random game and the controls go all haywire.

EDIT: 3: It appears when I have my Switch Pro controller it causes the machine to go haywire from beyond 2.09. When I unplug it then try the emulator the list shows up.

First of all, thanks so much for putting this ROM set together! Now my question: :)
When the torrent finished downloading, it stopped at 77gb out of 123gb. It seems the download worked, but some games (Trog, Elevator Action Returns) weren't working and I'm wondering if there was a problem with my download. Forcing a recheck doesn't cause the rest of the 46gb to download. Has anyone else run into this issue, or could my download have been corrupted and best to redownload?

Is there any place to download a cap-33s-2.chd for Street Fighter III 3rd Strike: Fight for the Future (Euro 990608) that will work on MAME 0.241+? I keep receiving checksum error no matter where I download it from.

Does that include the CHDs or how do we dl those too? And where do we put them? I am confused on all this.

Bear117: Pac-Man and several other variants are contained/merged in puckman.zip.

I am a bit of a newb to this. I could not find pacman.zip. There is a pacmon.zip. Has pacman been merged into another .zip collection?

Isn't the latest Romset 0.236?

The set looks pretty complete to me. Thanks for sharing it here. Is there any other free
MAME ROMset I can download or this is the most complete one?

Is there a Torrent link for this new .240 set?

It's probably my fault since I'm new to MAME, but I have the 0.240 version, and all these roms are detected as unavailable by the emulator. All of them. Any reason as to why?

.

cant someone just make a zip of all the roms and include CHDs for games that need them?! i'm tired of having to jump through so many hoops..

The torrent shared is appreciated.
However, it is interesting that my clrmamepro skips 99% of the roms and just found little matches.
Is that some kind of file format problem ?

Chad!!!! Where is your logo with the nose dude!!! You are awesome you know that right? Please tell me the logo is coming back!!!

@Olddantrucker
If you don't know how to use jDownloader, you can always try the torrent method:
https://archive.org/download/mame-merged/mame-merged_archive.torrent

This looks pretty complete, I can't seem to get the torrent to finish though. the last three megs just stall. But Im looking forward to diving in!